Public to help pay for police body cams

by Simon Williams

Police body cameras

EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14) —

City Council was expected to meet on Tuesday and discuss a proposal that would bring The El Paso Police Department one step closer to wearing body cameras. That proposal was deleted off of the City Council agenda.

The presentation has been postponed or removed from the agenda several times since it was proposed. It suggests that the city create an account on the website BodyCameraDonations.com to invite the public to help pay for the cameras. That site has a list of several police departments across the country. Any member from the public can go to the website, choose their city, and make a donation to help that police department pay for body cameras.

If the item is approved, then El Paso would be added to the list.

The use of body cameras hopes to bring more transparency to the department.

There is some controversy regarding the body cameras.

In November, council members approved using a grant to pay for the body cameras. Texas law says the El Paso Police Department would be required to match 25 percent of the grant money.

Tuesday's agenda item says that the department use any public donations collected from the website to help cover the cost of body cameras and/or match grant funding.